child, and I am old? Is anything impossible with God? At the time appointed I will return, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son. And they went away from Abraham.'[1] Again he speaks of them thus: 'And the men rose up from thence, and looked toward Sodom.'[2] Then to Abraham He who was and is again speaks: 'I will not hide from Abraham, my servant, what I intend to do.'"[3] And what follows in the writings of Moses I quoted and explained; "from which I have demonstrated," I said, "that He who is described as God appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, and the other patriarchs, was appointed under the authority of the Father and Lord, and ministers to His will." Then I went on to say what I had not said before: "And so, when the people desired to eat flesh, and Moses had lost faith in Him, who also there is called the Angel, and who promised that God would give them to satiety, He who is both God and the Angel, sent by the Father, is described as saying and doing these things. For thus the scripture says: 'And the Lord said to Moses, Will the Lord's hand not be sufficient? thou shalt know now whether my word shall conceal thee or not.'[4] And again, in other words, it thus says: 'But the Lord spake unto me, Thou shalt not go over this Jordan: the Lord thy God, who goeth before thy face, He shall cut off the nations.'[5]
Chap. cxxvii.—These passages of Scripture do not apply to the Father, but to the Word.
"These and other such sayings are recorded by the lawgiver and by the prophets; and I suppose that I have stated sufficiently, that wherever[6] God says, 'God went up from Abraham,'[7] or, 'The Lord spake to Moses,'[8] and, 'The Lord came down to behold the tower which the sons of men had built,'[9] or when 'God shut Noah into the ark,'[10] you must not imagine that the unbegotten God Himself came down or went up from any place. For the ineffable Father and Lord of all
